Most residents are familiar with Green Acres, the New Jersey open-space initiative, but not with the Blue Acres version.

Under Blue Acres, the state can buy flood-prone land when maintaining private property there becomes difficult. The land is then preserved as open space.

Last week, the state Assembly Appropriations Committee approved a bi-partisan package of bills (A3368, A3369 and A3370) that appropriates more than $123 million in voter-approved funding for a new Blue Acres initiative.

“This program allows [home and business owners] to willingly sell their homes to the state, which is crucial,” said Assemblyman John Burzichelli (D-Cumberland/Gloucester/Salem), chairman of the Appropriations Committee.

“Properties that are repeatedly prone to flooding are nearly impossible to sell,” Burzichelli explained, “nor do we want new owners to come in and subject themselves to costly, reoccurring damage.”

The money from the Blue Acres push comes from a bond approved by New Jersey voters in 2009, the Green Acres, Water Supply and Floodplain Protection, and Farmland and Historic Preservation Bond Act.

While the timing is impeccable, the use of these funds for Blue Acres is in no way related to the recent destruction by Hurricane Sandy.

The funds were scheduled to be allocated at this time.

“Blue Acres money is just a very, very small drop in the bucket and will not nearly do enough ... for what we learned from this last hurricane,” Burzichelli said.

Not only are the funds limited but, according to the assemblyman, the last piece of the Green Acres bond for the foreseeable future.

“We got unlucky in the fact that the storm hit, but a little bit lucky because of these funds becoming available,” Burzichelli said.

It is unclear whether municipalities would have to match funds provided by Blue Acres should they wish to acquire some of the land.

Pennsville Township, in Salem County, has seen its share of flooding in the wetlands region along the Delaware River.

But the township cannot afford to match funds given by the state if so required, Mayor Richard Barnhart stated.

Also flood-prone along the Delaware River is Gloucester County’s Greenwich Township.

“We’re actually working with [U.S. Rep. Rob Andrews] to find a way to alleviate flooding,” said Mayor George Shivery.

The mayor said that he’s willing to listen to anything that might help, but he prefers preventative measures like dredging the ditches along Interstate 295 to contain floodwaters.

Dredging is expensive, however, and the township is not in a good position to cover the cost right now.

“After a couple hurricanes and a couple bad storms,” Shivery said, “people are realizing this is a problem that needs to be addressed.”

Finding the money to prevent floods or buy open space is special problem for Delaware Bay communities that lack the population density and the heavy industrial or commercial venues of some Delaware River towns.

The bill’s language specifically names the Delaware Bay Watershed Greenway as one place where land can be acquired by the state.

That area includes the Alloway Creek Greenway, the Cohansey River Greenway and the Maurice River Greenway in Salem and Cumberland counties plus, in Gloucester County, sections of Elk, Franklin and Monroe townships that include the headwaters of these rivers.

Other parts of Gloucester and Camden counties are included in a greenway that follows the Delaware River Watershed, which extends as far inland as Deptford and Berlin townships, respectively.

Even with Blue Acres support, not as much can be done for flood-prone areas as some would like.

“It’s important to remember that most of this money is spoken for,” said Matt Blake, spokesman for the American Littoral Society.

Blake’s organization champions open spaces. He wants Hurricane Sandy to be a wake-up call for sensitive Delaware River and Bayshore environments.

Because of climate change and rising sea levels, Blake said, South Jersey will become increasingly vulnerable to nature’s fury.

“It’s going to be far cheaper to start strategically buying out people who are in harm’s way than to keep restructuring and rebuilding,” Blake said.

Wetlands and other natural barriers are the most important protection against storm surges, Blake stated.

Comprehensive policies should be put in place now, he said, instead of small, separate projects that politicians come up with.

“Some of these areas are going to become future tidal wetlands, so we have to accept that change is coming,” Blake observed.

With Blue Acres funding, “We have a good opportunity to facilitate that process,” Blake said.

One Cumberland County community refuses to let nature — or the state — lay claim its bayshore.

Overwhelming winds toppled concrete barriers in the township and roads were either severely damaged or completely washed away.

“This isn’t something that popped up over so-called sea-level rise,” said Downe Mayor Bob Campbell. “We had a storm this bad 80 years ago.”

The mayor is aware of Blue Acres’ potential for creating public recreational areas along the Delaware Bayshore, but he does not appreciate the way he now sees towns like his being targeted.

“The mission has changed, from when I first heard about it, to buying homes in flood-prone areas and giving them back to the horseshoe crabs — which I’m 1,000 percent against,” Campbell said.

According to Campbell, Downe Township is already 75 percent open space.

Looking at neighboring communities, he sees more than 200 years of bayshore history. Those communities have every right to exist when compared to the younger but more heavily revered —and more heavily damaged — barrier island towns on the seashore.

“We just don’t have the political and financial power to fight back against this double standard imposed on the Delaware Bayshore community,” Campbell said.

Since Hurricane Sandy, private property owners in Downe Township have worked to rebuild what they have lost, the mayor said, and its residents are currently wading through the insurance process.

The residents whom Campbell has talked to since the storm have all expressed a desire to rebuild and continue their lives on the bayshore, the mayor added.

“Unfortunately, there’s a lot of people who see the Blue Acres program as an opportunity to drive the humans off the beaches and waterways,” said Campbell.